March 21, 2012

On April 10, 1963 the USS Thresher, an American nuclear-powered attack submarine sank while doing dive tests in the Atlantic Ocean 200 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. Following a power failure, the submarine imploded at crush depth resulting in the deaths of all 129 men on board.

Jim Richardson, Jr. was not the only one to head into the recording studio to memorialize the tragedy. Phil Ochs recorded an entirely different song called The Thresher for his 1964 Elektra LP All The News That's Fit To Sing. And Abner Jay, an idiosyncratic folk / blues singer from Fitzgerald, Georgia who described himself as "the last southern black minstrel" also recorded yet another song with the same title.

March 20, 2012

A quick check-in from your kamikaze reporter... Since the marathon ended I've gotten out to check out a few bands: shots are in this order: Magic Circle from Boston, Windhand from Richmond, VA, Rhode Island's Pilgrim, a shot of Brooklyn's own Natur and then live in the WFMU studio on this past edition of My Castle of Quiet: Wretched Worst! This Thursday at noon, the PEER PRESSURE guest on my Kamikaze Fun Machine program will be Mike Hill, guitarist and songwriter/vocalist of TOMBSto DJ a set of music that's sure to be killer! Final photo in this bit is of TOMBS from last year's SXSW performance at Lovejoy's. Enjoy!

March 19, 2012

Half of Thunk Tank almost died last week, which made us realize that we owe it to you, the WFMU Listener, to alert you to the Five Most Likely Things That Will Kill You (this week). Consider it a public service. (You’re welcome.)

1. All-Drug-Resistant TB. Okay, it’s not bad enough that you keep taking antibiotics for your headcold (Das viral!) and using antibiotic soap to wash your crusty dishes, which caused multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis even in a young female ginger who is also a lawyer and lives in London (much to the surprise of the BBC). No, now your stupid antibiotic lip glosshas caused ALL-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis, which is just in India now, but will be killing you sometime next month.

March 18, 2012

Nearly two years ago, I posted an album featuring C. Northcote Parkinson speaking on the subject of Democracy. I mentioned that, when I had picked up that album, I also got two more albums in what was a ten part series of interviews with Parkinson, regarding various political systems. Since then, I've had a couple of requests to feature the other two albums, and so that's what I'm doing today. Album seven in the series covered "Dictatorship", and album eight covered "The Russian Communist Theocracy"

Like the Democracy album, both of the other album covers were badly damaged in a flood, so I can't offer up scans of those covers (all of which were identical, except for the volume and title), but I will share this quote from the back:

"Dr. Parkinson adheres to the pessimistic belief that democracy died a long time ago as a creed and an inspiration and while he feels that dictatorship is the characteristic 20th Century form of government, he believes that all systems end to bear the seeds of their own destruction...that no one system is best for all countries and for all times".

March 17, 2012

"The record business in those days was Mob controlled. It wasn't a fun business to be in." - Dick Curtis, Comedian

"A lot of people didn't like [comedian] Jackie Kannon. They didn't like his toughness." - Sol Weinstein, Gagwriter

"Then there was Morris Levy's endless supply of special girlfriends and his passion for gambling and prostitutes." - Tommy James, Lead Singer of The Shondells

The Mob ran the record biz. During the height of America's nightclub abundancy, the ruthless owner of New York's Birdland and Peppermint Lounge was one of the most powerful men in the scene. Morris Levy used his clubs to promote the acts on his record label and he used his record label to exploit his clubs. Immersed in these two worlds, it was natural that Morris Levy would encounter every stand-up comedian in the business.

As television became common in the early nineteen fifties, the majority of radio programming moved to the visual terrain. The scramble to fill radio's dead air gave birth to the disc jockey and the pop music hustle. Morris Levy ensured that his label, Roulette Records, was there to fill the void. Radio became pop music's round-the-clock infomercial, dictating which tracks would sell in record stores. Morris Levy was a master at ensuring his artists got airplay. That mastery involved a faculty of full-time thugs and their impressive collection of bedraggled baseball bats.

Joey Dee and The Starlighters were one of Levy's most profitable acts. "I'd get in the limo with George Goldner, an employee," says Joey. "He'd drive. It would be a couple ladies of the evening, hookers, in the back of the limo and we'd drive to these towns. They'd meet with the deejays, give them an envelope with cash in it, allow them their way with the girls in the car, and then go on to the next town. And the next town. And the next town. Our records were played. God forbid they took the money and didn't play the records. That's when the baseball bats came out... and worse."

Between 1960 and 1966 the biggest fad going in the LP world was comedy records. Labels big or small, comedians hopelessly funny or just downright hopeless, pressed albums. Levy thought nothing of giving a disc jockey an envelope full of cash and yet, he denied his recording artists the same courtesy. Major acts like Buddy Knox or Jimmie Rodgers found themselves nearly broke while their names were at the top of the charts. The Roulette comedians didn't fare any better. Unlike the musicians that signed a slanted contract, Roulette's comedians had no contract at all. Many had their act recorded clandestinely - and released to the market without permission. Any other record label would have faced a major lawsuit. Roulette Records was different. You got a problem with us? That's fine. Soon you're gonna have a problem with your legs.

WFMU Dept. of Occult Studies brings you this short essay from noted gourmet, actor and demonologistVincent Price. Here produced for record by Roger Karshner and written and directed by Terry d'Oberoff. It comes from the highly-recommended double lp "Vincent Price Witchcraft and Magic", a fun effort marred only slightly by the decision to add 'spooky' echo delay to Price's voice throughout the whole record. Since a Boyd Rice interview is likely coming up soon in this space, this track is a little taste of what won't be discussed in a few weeks. Enjoy a Vinnie snack:

After the release of Derek Jarman’s Jubilee in 1978, Vivienne Westwood, outraged at what she saw as a misrepresentation of punk, took to her then preferred medium, the t-shirt, to express her displeasure. The “Open T-Shirt to Derek Jarman,” with its wordy scrawl, is a rather confusing cultural artifact in that it now seems rather counterproductive. For starters, punk certainly had more important enemies in 1978 than a queer experimental filmmaker and visual artist, a fellow member of the counterculture whether she liked it or not, and what’s more, some of the language seems rather homophobic, being that it attributes the film’s fancier bits to “a gay (which you are) boy’s love of dressing up and playing at charades.” Of course, all of that is to say nothing of the sheer impracticality of using a t-shirt to communicate a lengthy essay. But to be fair, it was a time when what punk meant, what it was trying to say and what it wanted, was a fiercely debated topic, especially in the UK and especially among those who would claim the movement as their own, Still, in hindsight, Jubilee seems to not only encapsulate what was in the air in the late 70s, but also punk’s roots and hints of its future.

Jubilee started life as a planned 8 mm film about the actress/model Jordan, whose outrageous couture and attitude fascinated Jarman, but the project soon grew into something more ambitious, “a film about punk”, before transcending even that broad description. Writing in The Guardian, Stuart Jeffries explains that,

March 16, 2012

John Allen played music from House Of Low Culture.This drone metal project is composed of members of the bands Sun O, Old Man Gloom, and Isis (the current Isis, not the 1970's Isis.)

On My Castle Of Quiet, tonight at midnight, William Berger will have the Kentucky band Wretched Worst as his guests. He played their "Sickening Ship/Two Million Heads,"and describes their dark improvisations as where "Can, grindcore, and Flipper intersect."

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine hipped me to a track by hyped up-and-coming MC Danny Brown based around the rather unconventional sample choice of This Heat's "Horizontal Hold." While in theory this is the sort of thing I'd generally freak over, the finished product for me is a bit of hit-and-miss. I'm still not sold on Brown as an MC deserving of his copious hype; his mannered "offensive-absurd" "outsider" schtick rings as way too calculated, though at least this track in question proves that it's very possible to rock "Hold" as a break, even if I keep wishing for someone of Pharoahe Monch's caliber to rip the song to shreds.

And then there's the rather lazy novelty of it all. It's cool that Brown and producer Paul White are forward-looking enough to chance this interesting juxtaposition, but the rather mundane nature of the whole affair underestimates just how inventive a lot of hip-hop production has been in terms of utilizing unexpected and/or obscure samples, especially in the 80's and 90's heyday. The best of the best MC's have been rocking over ESG's "UFO" (flipped on the wrong speed no less) for eons, not to mention proto-metal gods Mountain seeing a live version of their "Long Red" becoming a standard break.

For the curious, the website Who Sampled provides an indispensable user-edited database of sample sources that can easily tune one on to just how diverse and ingenious many of hip-hop's best producers have been in their re-contextualization of cross-genre catalogs as the basis for their distinctive beatscapes. One interesting case I wish to address is the use of Canterbury prog-fusion legends The Soft Machine in the canon of 90's hip-hop. These following three notable 90's tracks went into the band's early catalog as a means for crafting the sort-of head-nodding, neck-breaking boom-bap snap that a plethora of hip-hop purists worship and lament.

Craig Mack - "Get Down (Q-Tip Remix)"

Many still overlook just how incredible Q-Tip was as a producer in the 90's, not only in terms of being responsible for the vast majority of the beats on his group A Tribe Called Quest's first three classic albums, but also for all-too-infrequently outsourcing his skills behind the board, with this work thus appearing on such classic albums as Mobb Deep's The Infamous and Nas' Illmatic. A little more overlooked was Tip's overhaul of early Bad Boy signee Craig Mack's underrated second single "Get Down," this remix of which not only included a new third verse courtesy of Tip, but more notably an ingenious flip of some minimal, sparse organ chords that dabble about during the introduction of the Soft Machine's "Facelift," the opening side to the band's fusion masterpiece Third. It's the kind-of obscure snatch that maybe the most patient and attentive of listeners may spot, but putting the remix and its source back to back proves conclusively that Tip had a brilliant ear for hearing something funky in this notably abstract bit of improv.

March 15, 2012

Let's break our usual pattern of directing your attention towards things from the past for a second. There will be an amazing show of fragile beauty and darkness at Saint Vitus in Greenpoint, Brooklyn tonight, Thursday March 15. Picastro is coming down from Canada exclusively for a one off show and will be flanked by Sondra Sun-Odeon and Yosh/Bloody Panda. For more details please check out the FBinvite.

Growing up in New Jersey during the 1980’s was an extremely exciting time. 15 minutes outside New York City, and some of the best radio to hit the airwaves. I had a Panasonic RS-466S radio that sat on my dresser and remember going down the dial...hiss...static...crackle...then magically a breathy female voice appeared, announcing that she’s having a RAP ATTACK!

The host to this radio show was Mr. Magic, and he was much cooler than any magician I had ever seen. All his selections were new and fresh to my ears as I spent years taping his show on crappy Radio Shack Realistic Low Noise cassettes.

As a young man John Rivas had aspirations like many, to be legendary NYC disc jockey and superstar Frankie Crocker (December 18, 1937 - October 21, 2000). He enrolled at New York School of Announcing and Speech, where he learned about radio station WHBI, who sold airtime. Through his job and a few other local business’, John was able to put together enough money to start his own slot at the station. The spring of 1979 saw the debut of “Disco Showcase”. Live MC’s rapping over breakbeats, made John Rivas show, (now Mr. Magic) the very first on-air rap radio program.

March 14, 2012

MIXTAPE SPECIALToday's Motherlode pays tribute to those magnanimous bloggers who, in addition to their constant ripping of tracks, scanning of album art and writing of nuggets, somehow find time to produce marvelous homemade mixes as well. Most prolific of all is the venerable Moos of Global Groove who's now dished out three dozen such collections. While Moos produces samplers as a way to highlight individual tracks from previously posted LPs, other hosts are merely taking pleasure, in the age-old analog mixtape tradition, at concocting high-, low-, and no-concept collections of tunes they're just dying for you to hear.

On display below is a collection of custom mixes I think you'll appreciate. If you do, please drop by the offering blogs and leave a kind word for all the extra effort.

Around the World in 36 Mixtapes"With over 1100 posts, the Global Groove is becoming quite a reference book. Lots of styles from lots of countries are to be found here. To help you find your way through all those LPs...Global Samplers can be of help. They contain some personal favorites and highlights. Single tracks from selected LPs that were posted through time." (Description by Moos, from Sampler #33)

[There are 36 amazing samplers available at Global Groove. Scroll through the archives and collecte them all!]

March 13, 2012

WFMU returns to Austin Saturday night for it's showcase, this time an event independent of the SXSW Festival at the great Beerland, 711 Red River. It's a 6-band blowout starting 8pm central/9 PM Eastern, and Liz Berg, Jason Sigal, Brian Turner will be broadcasting the sets live over WFMU-FM and wfmu.org. $10 door entry, no SXSW badges or wristbands accepted. All proceeds to the bands. Special commemorative posters designed by Nevada Hill will available at the show!

Lineup (Times Central):

8PM: Electric Jellyfish: Straight outta Melbourne: "Electric Jellyfish carry the torch along with Eddy Current Suppression Ring lighting the way to a legendary story of distinctive rock 'n roll beginning with bands such as Radio Birdman, The Saints, X, the Birthday Party, feedtime, etc. Their sound is on par with The Wipers in their heyday...such daring emotional vulnerability, yet it's psych/punk that's sonically full-fledged, solid, walloping, and (to quote Monoshock) 'philosophically Stoogely'".(Rick Ele)

9PM: The Wedding Present: The first band to play a WFMU show to have had 18 top 40 singles in the UK!

With the relationship between music and social media becoming even more entangled as the future looks more and more digital, young bands who had found themselves embedded within "local" scenes can easily find themselves larger audiences, intentionally or not. However, this idea is applicable for more than just kids starting out, as reissues of and articles about older, unknown-at-the-time records have led to reunion shows and even new material from bands who haven't played together in decades.

The Prefab Messiahs are an interesting band to examine this with, as they are closely tied to the "Wormtown" (Worcester, Mass) scene of the early 80s, one that also birthed the Prefabs' friend and mentor Bobb Trimble, who himself has found new popularity with the internet. The Prefab Messiahs' record, Peace Love & Alienation, has been reprinted on Gary War and Taylor Richardson's Fixed Identity label, and the group will be embarking on a short "reunion tour" in June, with a stop in New York on June 8th or 9th.

March 12, 2012

Hey there folks! I’m Morty the Mouse, and I’m here to introduce you to the brand new Bill of Rights! Your friends here in Washington realized that our Founding Fathers, as smart as they were, wrote the Constitution with some funny words that can be hard for regular folks like you and me to understand. So, in the spirit of projects like The Message—a version of the Bible written for hip youth—we decided to rewrite the Bill of Rights in language we can all enjoy. Now, just so you know, we didn’t change any of the meaning—no sir, this is exactly what the Founders meant to say—we just made it a little clearer. We hope you enjoy!

The Good Stuff: A Bill of Rights for Today’s Busy Citizen

1st Amendment

Confusing Old Stuff:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Good Stuff:

Congress won’t make any religion the official religion of the US, but we all know that unofficially, Christianity is the official religion and political rhetoric and public celebrations will all reflect this. Everyone has the right to speak in non-terroristy, ways as long as the government can listen in, receive information from center-left and center-right news outlets, and gather in shopping plazas for commerce, or in free speech cages during brief state-approved and scheduled demonstrations.

March 10, 2012

Without knowing you at all, I can say that Fehérlófia is unlike any other movie you’ve seen. Sure, it’s animated. That’s familiar. And sure, there are some recognizable images. Like, in that the English title is “Son of the White Mare,” and there are both sons and white mares. In fact, the storyline itself is incredibly familiar, and in a way, almost universal. Based in ancient folklore, the story is culled from ancient tales of the Scythans, Huns, and Avars but it taps into a shared collection of stories around the world. Ones with

March 09, 2012

WFMU's Fatty Jubbo pointed out that I had mixed up the 7" sides -- oof. My bad. The track I so aggressively canned, the Duotron track, was actually the track I liked most, which I mistakenly credited to Zeena Parkins. Zeena Parkins, apparently, was responsible for the track that I had such a big "Uh oh!" response to. Similarly, the track I loved, which I thought was the comp's opener, was actually the Jackwacker track. Regardless of whose track is whose, definitely still check out this recording -- it's fun, interesting, and incredibly weird. I learned two lessons. The first is that I should double check my listening when I don't know the majority of bands/artists involved (and also definitely not be so quick to assume the stand out tracks are by the "big(ger) name" artists). The second lesson is just, damn - WFMU folks know their stuff! Always pretty amazing to be totally schooled (very nicely, though), and in the process, learn about a really great band. Seriously check out the link to Duotron mp3s Fatty Jubbo posted in the comment section. Oh, and a third lesson - definitely do NOT make a lame joke about a song called "Dum Dum" when you're talking about the wrong song. So, without further ado, here's my original write up, making me look like a big, ol' Dum Dum.

"60 Second Compilation" just about says it. The 7", put out by Coat-Tail Records in 1995, is exactly what the title directly states -- a compilation with 60 second tracks by each artist. That uniformity of track length, though, is where this album's continuity seems to end. Seriously, the only thing sonically all these tracks have in common are the fact that they are physically imprinted onto the same album.

This heterogeneous mix has a couple truly spectacular stand-out tracks...and a few that made me want to stopper up my ears. Below are both sides of the comp, including each track. I'm including all of them because, hey, one lady's trash is another person's treasure, am I right? So who knows, the sickeningly slinky and jazzy cabaret-esque track by Duotron that makes me cringe for all of its brief 60 seconds might be your treasure (the track, though is fittingly called "I feel dum"...just saying).

But wait! I'm not just here to point out the one (okay, one of two or three) lame track! This comp is, despite (or perhaps because of) its frankly bizarre-o selection of tunes and artists, a pretty incredible listen. What's more, it's just....fun. Which I know might not seem like a particularly high bar to hold a release to, but one that sticks to its gimmicky 60-second track length rule, and also has artists ranging from Elliott Sharp to the Flying Luttenbachers to Zeena Parkins to Chris Cochrane to....well, really each of the tracks featured is completely different from all the rest. 60 Second Compilations is a strong albeit uneven listen because of the incredible variety of sounds and textures featured on it.

Side A starts off with Chris Cochrane's "Piss On My Food." It is dissonant, dystopian, and cacophonous, and I fully expect to hear this track again when the apocalypse is finally upon us. There's a nice track by Don Cabellero, followed by the aforementioned Duotron mess. Then comes the fast-paced, anxiety-inducing Flying Luttenbachers' track. It is called "Deception," it reminds me of Esplendor Geometrico, and it rules (but also might induce some serious anxiety if listened to on repeat). Side A wraps up with the heavy, thumping Gneissmaker piece, "Fanfare."

Jackwacker's "This Is My Home" starts off the B-side. It's good, weird, rhythmic rock and roll. L-R Duo's track is a slower, more thoughtful "rock" track, and it's a relatively peaceful track. This brief peace is pretty nice, coming before the Zeena Parkins track, "Sleazy." Which is absolutely amazing. As one would expect, from Zeena Parkins. It's by far the most energetic track on the comp, and ties for my favorite along with the first Chris Cochrane track. Listening to "Sleazy," you just want to get up and stomp your clunky boots and scrunch up your face while screaming, just like Zeena does -- amidst the din and vocal howling, "Sleazy" make for the ultimate brat anthem.

Next up is a really great Elliott Sharp track, "Roil." It builds beautifully, ending abruptly with an incredibly tense electronic shriek -- really nice. Finally, the comp ends pretty appropriately, with a fun, rhythmic track, courtesy of White, called Deer Chunk Carcass." The last three tracks of 60 Second Compilation definitely provide the strongest period of the album, and you're left feeling satisfied with the album, despite it clocking in at a brief 10 minutes.

The marathon is over. The station met its goal thanks to its listeners. Scott Williams played Scott McDowell and Faye singing Sonic Youth's "Death Valley '69" for the Hoof N' Mouth Sinfonia, where the WFMU DJs sing to close each year's fundraiser.

On More Exciting Moments, Frank O'Toole played "Stand In" from I Will Set You Free, the new Barry Adamson album. Adamson was a member of Magazine, but his solo work is influenced by jazz, and film composers like Ennio Morricone and John Barry. Donna played Morricone's "La Scoperta Dell' America (Esotica)" on Gateway To Joy. Bob Brainen played the main theme from Barry's 1960 Beat Girl soundtrack.

Tomorrow. from 11am-1pm, Micheal Shelly will have author Kent Heartman on his show to discuss his book,. The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story Of Rovk And Roll's Best Kept Secret. If a group like The Association or Fifth Dimension needed a band for a hit single in the 1960s and 70's. the Wrecking Crew were THE L..A,.session people. This huge unit included drummers Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, and bassists Carol Kaye, Max Bennett and Joe Osborne.

The Monkees also used The Wrecking Crew. Singer Davy Jones died last weekend. Debbie D. played their "Look Out! Here Comes Tomorrow" on Debbie Does WFMU. Jones was a child star before joining the band, playing the Artful Dodger in the cast of Oliver in the early 1960's. R.I.P.

March 08, 2012

Just when you think you've heard it all -- after culling through every volume of Back from the Grave, Teenage Shutdown, Garage Punk Unknowns, Highs in the Mid-Sixties and any number of similar '60s trash comps -- it's nice to read and hear something new from a band of old. Dedicated record collector Jay Litchfield's current blog, Rip It Up R.I., will cover the diminutive state's vibrant '60s music scene in great detail, and the first installment showcases the underheard and over-the-top Florian Monday & the Mondos, pictured to the left. Have a look and listen, and don't forget the lampshade on your head.